Brian Johnston

Brian Johnston practices in all areas of intellectual property law, with an emphasis on patent litigation. Mr. Johnston has litigated patent cases in district courts across the country, as well as Inter Partes Review proceedings (IPRs) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). His experience extends to all aspects of litigation, from pre-suit investigations, claim construction proceedings, fact discovery, expert discovery, and summary judgment proceedings, all the way through jury trials and appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He has handled patent cases on behalf of both patent owners and accused infringers. He has also litigated disputes relating to intellectual property contracts (such as IP purchase and licensing agreements), copyright infringement, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Mr. Johnston has handled matters in a wide variety of technical fields, including semiconductors, electronics, telecommunications, networking, cloud computing, digital signal processing, financial services, and various other hardware and software products. His experience in the semiconductor field encompasses transistor structures, packaging technologies, DC-DC voltage regulators, on-chip capacitors, RF power amplifiers, and growth of epitaxial layers of III-V semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN). His telecommunications and data networking experience includes smartphone technologies, location-based services, Internet security, cellular technologies, and Voice over IP technology. Before beginning his legal career, Mr. Johnston had academic and industry experience in the field of electrical engineering, working on applications as diverse as low-power wireless sensor networks, computer memory products, and encrypted networking technology.

Mr. Johnston also advises clients on potential intellectual property risks and opportunities outside of litigation. He has performed offensive and defensive patent studies comparing a client's patents to third-party products or, conversely, third-party patents to a client's products. He also helps clients of all sizes identify, develop, and protect their intellectual property assets by analyzing their patent portfolios and preparing and prosecuting patent applications consistent with the client's overall portfolio strategy.

Prior to joining Baker Botts, Mr. Johnston held judicial clerkships at both the district court and appellate court levels. He served as a law clerk for the Honorable Nicholas G. Garaufis in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and for the Honorable Jennifer Walker Elrod in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.